


Namesake (Or: Under An Almost-Full Moon)

by Thea_K



Category: ONE OK ROCK
Genre: A super mega-long one shot, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, I didn't plan it, I ended up with an epic instead, Kyudo, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25504723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_K/pseuds/Thea_K
Summary: It's the early 1930s and summer in Osaka. The new couple that replace the Yamadas in the rented rooms upstairs are very young-looking and shockingly modern, having relocated from Tokyo. The couple are a bit uncouth, but the youngest son of the Yamashita family finds himself drawn inexplicably to the male half of the pair. He and the man/boy called Takahiro hover around each other like magnets, and not even time can keep them apart.(A really unplanned mega-long one shot.)
Relationships: Morita Takahiro/Original Female Character(s), Morita Takahiro/Yamashita Toru, Moriuchi Takahiro/Yamashita Toru, Yamashita Toru/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I really wanted to try my hand at writing a 'soulmates' one-shot. I was inspired by a recent art exhibition I attended, which featured Japanese modernist art from the 1920s-30s. I really thought it would be a short one, written in one sitting...
> 
> Well, let's just say after four sittings and 7.5K words later, this epic beast finally was finished. Needless to say, perhaps I should start actually *planning* my stories. I really like just starting with an idea, and letting the story write itself, though. It's unbeta-ed and I might change some of the grammar/wording later. 
> 
> As always, translations at the end.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> P.S. Note that it involves major character death(s) and a few explicit (but not too explicit) scenes.

> _“I'll be looking for you… every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you...”_
> 
> Phillip Pullman | His Dark Materials.

The new couple that replace the Yamadas in the rented rooms upstairs are very young-looking and shockingly modern, having relocated from Tokyo.

She, of the bobbed hair and Western-pajama-like pantsuit, gives her name and shakes his hand unprompted when they run into each other in the hallway.

“Ayase Naomi,” she twitters, “although I wish it were Mary, as in the actress Mary Pickford.”

But it is he, with his slickly parted hair and sharp three-piece morning suit, that gets his attention.

The other man can’t be more than two years older than himself and stands more than a few inches shorter than him. Compared to the man, he feels like a tall, country bumpkin in his plain house _yukata_ , despite Osaka being a huge commercial city.

It’s the other man’s eyes, however, that really draw him in. If his own eyes can only be described as sleepy, _his_ eyes are a pleasant exercise in contradiction; lively, but touched with more than a hint of melancholy. They sit atop chiseled cheeks with a small constellation of moles on one of them, and a mouth that is fleshy and wide.

“Moriuchi Takahiro,” the other man says, with an outstretched hand, said mouth opening to a pleasant smile of white and mostly straight teeth.

“Welcome,” he greets simply with wary eyes, taking the other’s hand, “my mother has asked me to inform you that the evening meal should be ready by 8pm.”

Nothing remarkable happens when their hands touch.

But perhaps it’s that he’s unaccustomed to the Western looseness regarding skinship with a stranger, that an unsettling, heavy feeling overtakes him when their hands separate, as if they were strong magnets drawn together and a great force is required to keep them apart. He feels a throb in his chest, which he rubs absently, thinking it to be a sudden bout of gastric reflux.

He’s not alone in this feeling either, if the incredulity in the other’s widened eyes are any indication.

A heavy thud of a fallen luggage trunk as Naomi-san struggles to get it up the stairs. It jolts them out of the moment, but the feeling doesn’t dissipate until long after.

They don’t breathe a word of it.

**…**

The man called Takahiro laughs loudly with his head back, without a care in the world as he regales the dinner table with amusing anecdotes of packing their belongings and relocating to Osaka.

“And then I said to her, ‘we’re going to _Osaka_ and for only three months; I’m pretty sure they have soap and shampoo there too',” Takahiro-san chuckles at his own story, almost-perfect teeth on display.

He finds this behaviour more fascinating than mortifying, but he can feel his elder brother bristling with judgement beside him.

“May I ask what is your business, Moriuchi-san?” his mother asks politely, as she apportions the rice into generous servings in their bowls.

“Moriuchi?” his father butts in over his newspaper, “as in, of the Moriuchi exporting _zaibatsu_?”

Takahiro-san pauses, the hand about to lift the bowl of _miso-shiru_ to his mouth frozen in time, like a cinematic trick of the Lumière brothers. The mirth drains from his face; a silence descends. Eventually, he puts down the bowl, and answers:

“ _Hai_.”

The other man’s response is timid in contrast with his earlier bombast. His shoulders suddenly seem to slope downwards as if in shame and the corners of his mouth droop in an obvious frown.

From the other side of the table, he can’t help but think this man should learn to hold up his _tatemae_ better in polite company. His parents, who are adept at reading the sudden change of air, continue doing their thing as if nothing happened.

“Actually, Takahiro is an excellent artist. He’s picked up a few jobs, including some illustrations for the children’s magazine _Kodomo no Kuni_ , _”_ Naomi-san pipes up, “We’re here to see if we can set up a similar venture with a local publishing group.”

She gazes adoringly at Takahiro-san, whose eyes nervously shift amongst the other dinner attendees.

His view is obscured by the angle and the table, but he would bet his lifetime’s worth of savings that the woman has placed a hand on the other man’s thigh, in perhaps a gesture of comfort.

 _The nerve of these people_ , he can practically hear his brother admonishing them in his own head. But it is too late to turn them out; their family needs the rental money, since their shop’s business has declined due to the opening of a new fancy Western department store close by. It is only until the end of summer that they would have to put up with them.

Takahiro-san’s eyes land on his and, though the other is silent and he has known the man all but a few hours, he has a strong sense that they are seeking his approval. Why him? He has no idea, but suspects it’s related to the weird exchange from earlier. He’s never met anyone like this man; he finds himself weak against the large eyes that change from sparkling with _joie de vivre_ to despair in the course of a blink.

Meanwhile, his father picks up the thread of conversation and starts to passive-aggressively comment about some nationalistic bullshit about how Japan must uphold its way of life and not cave under the pressures of opening up to the West. Naomi-san, who is the diametric opposite to a shrinking violet, artfully backhands his veiled shots with her opinions about the importance of adapting to change, or face being selected out according to Darwin’s principles.

From his corner, he watches as Takahiro-san merely hangs his head and listens, appetite seemingly lost.

Wordlessly, he pushes the plate of _shichimi togarashi_ -seasoned _yakizana_ and _daikon_ towards the disconsolate man. When the latter looks up, he nods encouragingly and gives him a small, secret smile. A twinkle returns to Takahiro-san’s eyes as he extends his _hashi_ to separate a chunk of the fish’s flank and drop it into his rice bowl.

**…**

Later, when it’s past midnight and he’s still stuck on his geometry homework, his keen ears pick up on the quiet moans that float down from upstairs. Strangely, the pitch of both is on the high side; hers is just a bit higher than the other’s.

He’s annoyed at first and tries his best to tune it out, but the rising sounds quickly stir his youthful blood into a frenzy. He puts down his pencil and closes his eyes. For a hot second, he’s tempted to relieve himself but his elder brother’s snores from across the room quickly kill the idea.

Unable to stand it anymore, he blows out the candle, strides out of the shared room, slips on his _zori_ and finds solace in the tiny garden out back.

The stone of the bench against his back is chill and comforting as he counts stars. Soon his blood cools and he is asleep, his dreaming mind awhirl with constellations of moles and stars alike.

**…**

When he wakes, his body prickles with the awareness of being watched. 

Takahiro-san is bent over the balcony railing, partaking of a morning cigarette. The soft light of the morning sun reflects off his hair, making some parts look almost as blonde as a foreigner’s. He wears a white wifebeater singlet over his formal trousers. The singlet is slightly too large for his frame and calls attention to the lean sinew of his arms and his chest.

“ _Ohayou_ ,” he greets quietly, through an exhalation of smoke.

“ _Ohayou gozaimasu_ ,” he greets back, voice rough from sleep.

He pushes off the bench and palms the sleep from his eyes. Stealthily, he performs a self-check and is relieved to find his usual morning hard-on is half-shriveled in the nip of the early morning air. To his dismay, however, the other man seems to know what’s up when his eyes rise back up to face the other.

“Time for a cold morning shower,” Takahiro-san smirks, gesturing vaguely towards his lower half with the hand that holds his cigarette, “a quick one, if you don’t want to be late for school.”

He is irked by this. Maybe it’s the teasing tone, the annoyance and shame regarding last night’s events, or the idea that he’s thought of as a mere school boy by someone not that much older. _Hmph_ , he mutters, to think that he had thought he had formed a connection with this strange man.

“Smoking’s bad for your health,” he blurts out unthinkingly, out of frustration.

He feels himself deflating underneath his _yukata_ and is glad.

“Why do you care?” the smaller man asks, studying him while taking a deep inhale of the cigarette.

“I don’t,” he retorts, refusing to acknowledge how the other looks so much older and sophisticated when he nonchalantly blows out the smoke with his eyes narrowed.

 _I don’t_ , he repeats to himself as he stalks into the toilet – part of the detached bathroom complex at the back of the _machiya_ \- to get ready for the day.

**…**

The house is silent when he returns from school in the evening; his mother is probably out still buying ingredients for dinner, his brother and father still attending to their business.

He listens for noise from upstairs but doesn’t detect any movement. Good, he thinks. He enjoys time by himself to indulge in his hobbies undisturbed.

He sets his schoolbag down in the room he shares with his brother and fetches his _yumi_ and the bag containing his _kake_ from the corner. Carefully, he unwraps the _yumi_ from the protective cloth that covers it and strings the bow up using the bend where the wall meets the _tatami_ floor. Then, sitting in _seiza_ , he takes out his _kake_ and puts the deer-skin glove on.

Outside, in the garden, he stretches out his arms and shoulders before he begins his _kyudo_ practice.

Calming his mind, he spreads out his legs until they’re shoulder-distance apart and in a V-shape. He grabs the bow with his left, and its string with his gloved right hand. Then, like smoke slowly rising in the air, he raises the bow to just above head height. His left hand rotates its grip on the bow and pushes it out, and he pulls the string with his right, gracefully opening the bow.

He feels powerful and dignified. He pretends to let loose an imaginary arrow, returning the string back to its resting position. He brings the top of the bow back down to the ground in a direct arc, arms akimbo.

Time passes unchecked: the only measure of it is in the fatigue that creeps into his shoulder and back muscles when he repeats the bow opening movements over and over.

When his mental concentration tires, he realises he hears the sounds of dinner preparation emanating from the kitchen and that he has an audience. From their room’s balcony, Naomi-san is puffing away at a cigarette with Takahiro-san’s arm loosely around her waist.

He realises how weird he must look in his Western-like school uniform - not his _keikogi_ \- while practicing traditional archery. He stares at Takahiro-san’s hand and wonders at how casually it just lays there in such an intimate position.

“Huh,” Naomi says around her elegant silver cigarette holder, “I forgot how beautiful these antiquated martial arts can be.”

He turns away in embarrassment, beginning to unfasten his glove, and misses the contemplative admiration in her companion’s eyes.

**…**

The days pass like this: he goes to school and comes home, quickly practices kyudo before anyone can interrupt him, does his homework until called for dinner. He does his best to keep out of the young couple’s way, throwing them a mere nod when he sees them in the common hallways, and talks minimally at the dinner table. On the weekends, he spends by the nearby river with this best friend from childhood – an extremely affable and loyal fellow if a bit slow on the uptake sometimes.

From the stilted dinner conversations, he gathers that Naomi-san wiles away her days at the Takashimaya department store, dreaming of owning newfangled goods that are from Europe and North America and supposedly all the rage. Takahiro-san, on the other hand, mostly spends his daytime hours upstairs working on illustration commissions and goes for walks to stretch his legs from time to time.

It is there by the river that Takahiro-san happens upon him and his friend one day, frolicking in the water to cool off during the peak of the summer’s day’s oppressive heat. They are both brown from so many weekends spent this way. He has weird tan lines from the shirt he is too lazy to remove; his friend, who absolutely hates wearing shirts when the temperature is above 30 degrees Celsius, doesn’t.

“Who is that?” his friend gestures, standing thigh deep in the water.

He turns and spots Takahiro-san sitting on grassy knoll on the opposite bank of the river, watching them with a wistful look on his face. He is struck with the idea that he’s never seen or heard the man talk about any friends.

“No one,” he says quickly, hair dripping with the water he was splashed with.

“He’s gesturing for you to go over there,” his friend says, eyeing the man, “you sure you don’t know him?”

He sighs and begins to wade towards the shore to retrieve his sandals, his friend following him.

“That’s the man who’s renting our upstairs room for the summer with his girlfriend… fiancée, I dunno,” he says, shoving a hand into his hair and ruffling it to dry it off, glancing at the man from across the river.

Takahiro-san points to the footbridge and intimates that he’ll meet him there.

“He looks nice,” his friend comments, “very fashionable.”

“He…” he falters in his sentence.

Is a bit too loud and uncouth and pisses off my brother? Is a self-proclaimed artist who was probably cast out of his wealthy family? Can use his _hashi_ with both his right and left hand? Has lovely eyes and sounds like a girl when he’s in the throes of pleasure? Stares at him from across the hallway during the day, and the table at night, like he wants to get to know him but hasn’t been given the chance?

He doesn’t know what to say. He wrings out the sodden ends of his trousers in the pause of conversation.

“…probably is lost and needs directions home,” he ends, although this is likely not true, “I’ll take him there.”

“Want me to come?” his friend offers, sensing his discomfort.

“No, it’s alright. You go on home,” he says, which his friend, with a final, friendly wave to Takahiro-san, does.

**…**

They walk away from the river at a pace that can be described as leisurely but the emotions that swirl in him are anything but. Sweat begins to bead on his skin although he’s unsure if it’s from the sun, which beats down on them and causes a haze to obscure the paths that change from dirt to asphalt before them.

They pass the main street, including the new café whose striped awning and window-box flowers are meant to suggest the sophistication of the French. Takahiro-san catches him eyeing the café and the people that enter it.

“You should get a ‘ _baito_ there,” the smaller man says out of the blue. And, when the taller’s face betrays his confusion, “an _arubaito_ : a part-time job.”

“Why don’t _you_ get one there, if money’s so tight?” he rudely jabs back, not liking the feeling that he’s not as worldly as the other. 

He’s accidently overheard Naomi-san complaining that she can’t afford the latest hair curling iron (“it would save _so_ much time!”) because of their dwindling finances that Takahiro-san’s measly commissions can barely cover. It is a low blow - completely out of line with his polite upbringing - that he immediately feels shame colouring his face and neck.

“I…” he begins, stopping in his tracks and clearing his throat.

“It’s alright,” Takahiro-san interjects with sad eyes, halting next to him, “maybe I should. How else will I make my dream to become an independent artist come true?”

He feels awful, his height over the man feeling, all of a sudden, like a tangible representation of the weird power that he has over the petite man. But then, a mercurial change overcomes Takahiro-san’s eyes, and they become mischievous. 

“Come visit me often when I do?” Takahiro-san jokes, breaking the tension.

He can’t help the lift the corners of his mouth when he’s blinded by the smaller man’s smile.

“I’ll stalk you, until you’ll do whatever I say to get me to leave you alone,” he jokes back.

The chortles that burst forth from the petite man, which garner reprimanding looks from passersby, echo in his head when he lays down on his _futon_ later that night.

**…**

After that, the wall that he had unconsciously erected between he and Takahiro-san gives way, like a sand hill that is reshaped by a zephyr.

Now, he greets the man a shy “ _konnichi wa_ ” whenever they pass each other in the narrow hallways, perhaps not leaning away as he should; instead, letting their shoulders brush ever so slightly. He feels flattered (and an unnamable thrill) when he catches Takahiro-san admiring his _kyudo_ practice and may hold his chest out during _kai_ for a bit longer than normal, if he’s honest. At the dinner table, they share a sly wink whenever his mother asks how his commissions are going, and the smaller man replies: “good enough to not warrant a _‘baito_ just yet.”

His brother’s eyes are as keen as a hawk’s and picks up on the increasing intimacy between the two. 

“They’ve approved the building of a new department store across town,” his brother throws out across the dinner table one evening. If he knows his brother well, he knows he’s itching for a fight.

“Oh! That’s exciting!” Naomi-san perks up, from mixing her _hiyashi chuka_.

His brother turns a pointed look at her, the disapproving twist of his mouth barely concealed.

“It’s sure to further dent our business,” his father grumbles from the far end.

His father complains how the department stores don’t follow the old ways of business; any riff-raff is allowed into the store, even when they have no intention or the means to buy the goods. He not so subtly turns to the young woman when he airs out his griefs.

“No respect for tradition,” his father gripes, “Japan is rapidly losing itself; next we’ll have children running away from home, thinking they can do better than their parents.”

A chill spreads down his spine, which is weird, because he normally wouldn’t have really paid that much attention to the words. He glances across the table, and is alarmed to see Takahiro-san as white as a sheet.

“Hush now,” his mother chides his father, and sends a worried look over to Takahiro-san. She, too, has witnessed the way her son has been opening up to the young man, who seems less uncouth and more unguided the more she gets to know him.

“ _Shitsureishimasu_ ,” Takahiro-san says quietly as he lowers his _hashi_ on to its _hashioki_ and leaves the room.

It may just be his imagination but the light in the room seems duller, as if the petite man had taken some of the fluorescent light above them with him. For the first time he wishes he had age and importance enough to be listened to.

**…**

That night, he is still troubled by the events of the dinner. This, along with the cloying press of humid summer air around him and his brother’s snores, makes sleep elude him. Giving up on trying to catch a wink, he spies the almost-full moon from the window and decides to go outside where he hopes might be cooler.

He is parting the _noren_ of the back entrance when he notices he’s not the first to seek refuge in the garden. The orange-red lit end of a cigarette alerts him to Takahiro-san’s presence, who sits on the garden’s only bench. The man scoots over to one end: a silent invitation for him to join.

They sit and watch the moon in companionable silence. Wisps of cloud float over it occasionally, but its light is as clear as it can be on such a night. The smell of cigarette smoke doesn’t bother him as he once thought it would.

Hating to break the peace but wanting to unburden himself, he says: “I’m sorry for earlier.” 

Takahiro-san nods, then drops and crushes the end of his cigarette with his sandal. He moves back on the bench, bringing up his bare feet and hugs his knees. He looks much younger this way, even younger than he himself: a lost child. Or maybe, he thinks, this is what he’s really like underneath all the pretenses of being an adult and a thoroughly modern one at that.

“I didn’t run away,” the older man admits, “I was thrown out because my parents thought indulging in ‘vulgar Western art’ was unbecoming of someone of our illustrious pedigree.”

The vulnerability he is shown draws out a protective instinct in him. He wants desperately to reach out - to pat the man’s shoulder or knee, as Naomi-san would have, but he is scared. Scared of impropriety, or what else he might do; he doesn’t know.

“If only I was a good son and liked traditional things, like you and your _kyudo_ ,” Takahiro-san laments, head on his knees as if it carried the weight of the world.

 _Ah, so that was it_ , he thinks. He watches the other’s eyes, which glisten in the moonlight and his young heart breaks for the first time ever. He feels powerless to help the dejected man and yearns to return the megawatt smile to his face and the joy to his eyes.

“If it makes you feel any better, I wanted to learn how to play the guitar but _chichi-ue_ wouldn’t let me,” he says.

Inside he feels like he’s being pulling this way and that, with the general direction ever nearer to the man beside him.

“I could at least show you how to do the _shaho-hassetsu_ ,” he daringly adds, offering what little he knows from his meagre life experience.

After a while, the other lifts his head where it rests on top of his knees, and replies: “Sure.”

They stand side by side, with Takahiro-san mimicking his movements to the best of his ability. They don’t have _yumi_ or gloves on, but they go through the movements with his careful explanation of their order and importance. The blessed silence the familiar movements brings to his mind is a balm to its earlier tumult.

Takahiro-san is a quick study but his stance lacks stability; he leans far too forward, and his hands lift a too high above his head.

“You look like you’re about to jump into the river”, he says, trying to muffle his amusement.

“ _Uruse_ \- “, the smaller man laughs, with his behind sticking out, “come over here and show me how it’s done then.”

He swallows – mouth suddenly dry – and moves to stand closely behind Takahiro-san, whose laughter dies away.

Just like that, the calm of his mind disappears. His heart thunders in his chest and he speaks slowly so as not to give away his unsettled state.

“Your shoulders should be directly on top of your hips, which should be in line with your knees,” he says quietly, using his right hand to pull the smaller man’s shoulders backwards.

Hesitantly, he places his left hand on the small of the other’s back and gently pushes it forward. The movement brings the man’s turned head closer to his so that his mouth is aligned to Takahiro-san’s ear.

“And lower your hands a bit, so that they’re in line with the top of your head,” he murmurs into it.

“Like this?” the smaller man says breathily, making gooseflesh erupt on his skin. In the periphery of his vision, he sees it is still too high.

Slowly, he slides his hand from the other’s shoulder, up his tricep and forearm, to grab at his wrist. He gently tugs Takahiro-san’s hand down, hyperaware of the body he’s wrapped around: its solidness, the smell of smoke and cologne that lingers, even the slightly oily fragrance of hair pomade.

“Like this,” he whispers, the feeling of being scared to lose control completely overtaken by one that is burning him from inside out.

“ _Sou ka_ ,” Takahiro-san whispers back, his head turning backwards even more, and tilting up so their mouths align but are separated by mere millimetres of restraint.

Then:

“Taka-kun?”

Naomi-san’s sleepy voice fills the air, and he reflexively drops his hold of the other man’s wrist and steps back. She appears on the balcony a few seconds later, an untied _yukata_ thrown carelessly over a _négligée_.

Takahiro drops his hands and turns around quickly, hands fumbling around his trouser pockets.

“Yeah?” he answers shakily.

“What are you doing out there?” Naomi-san questions, rubbing one hand to her eye and yawning.

“I was just about to have a smoke,” Takahiro-san lies, hands emerging from his pockets to hold up a golden cigarette case and a lighter.

“Well, come back to bed,” she orders, her eyes looking past him and over to the frozen boy that silently watches their exchange. Before she can ask about his presence, the smaller man springs to action.

“Fine,” Takahiro-san says, and with jerky movements, repockets the items in his hands and leaves without a single glance over to him.

He stands there for a while after they’re gone. Eventually, he goes back to his room.

It doesn’t surprise him when he hears twin moaning start. They’re much louder this time and he thinks he can even see the string of the overhead light sway a little in the dark.

Reminiscing the feel of the smaller body enwrapped with his own, the sweet smell of clove cigarette and hair pomade on a head close to his own, he slips a hand underneath his _yukata_ and palms himself quietly and furiously to completion.

After, he drags himself to the outside toilet to wipe himself clean and change into a new house _yukata_. He is exhausted by the time he makes it back to his _futon_ , falling into a dreamless sleep.

**…**

He frets that they will be back to cold-shouldering each other on occasions in the hallways and barely interacting at the dinner table after that late-night encounter, but it is the opposite.

Suddenly the other man is everywhere. When they pass each other in the hallway, he mutters a bright “ _konnichi wa_ ”, which contrasts with the smouldering look he sends to him as their shoulders brush ‘accidentally’. The smaller man begins to work on the balcony every afternoon when he practices his _kyudo_ , looking over at him once in a while over his sketchpad. Surprisingly, the night owl Takahiro-san starts getting up early and joining his family for breakfast, which delights his mother. 

The smaller man even joins in the riverside antics of he and his best friend, who takes to the smaller man like a kid to hardboiled candy. Takahiro borrows a yukata from him, or some undershirts and trousers he’s outgrown, so that he doesn’t dirty his smart day suits. The three splash each other and take turns to push each other underneath the water, laughing freely.

Standing in the water, seeing the older man enjoy himself by not being the adult he was prematurely forced into being, warms his heart more than the intense July sun ever could.

One day, they’re left alone when his best friend tires and plonks himself facedown on to the grass beside the river, promptly falling asleep. Seeing as they’ve been at it for hours now, he knows his friend will be out for a while.

They wait a minute or two, looking around to see if there’s anyone watching, before they wade the short distance to each other.

Boldly, Takahiro slides a hand up his chest, around his neck and tangles his fingers in the hair on his nape. It should feel wrong but it is like a natural continuation of the increasing closeness.

“Don’t take your eyes off me,” the man staring up at him says. As if he could.

The smaller man pulls his head down to his level and slowly presses their lips together. When they part, his eyes shine brighter than they’ve ever been.

Then, in that mercurial way of his, Takahiro-san brings his hands down on the taller’s shoulders and pushes him underwater.

When he surfaces, the smaller man is cackling and frantically swimming to get away from the swift retribution he knows is coming. 

**…**

They become lovers after that, secretly meeting up in the garden past midnight when the household slumbers unsuspectingly.

In the darkened and cramped bathroom, they learn the language of each other’s bodies. There, they are equals; neither having experience with another man.

He loves it best when he’s behind Takahiro-san, whose arms he holds up and pins to the wall in crude approximation of raising a bow, and he thrusts between his oil-slickened thighs. It never takes him long to come. After, he turns the smaller man around, drops to his knees and suckles on his member until the other moans and moans like a girl and coats the inside of his mouth with a bitter tang that tastes faintly of cloves.

“Call me Taka,” the smaller man pleads, and he complies.

“Taka – Taka –Taka…” until he spends himself in off-white ribbons on those smooth thighs.

During the day, they keep up a friendly façade and maintain a cordial distance. But at night, on the garden bench partially hidden by a plum tree, he erases the distance entirely when gathers the smaller man to his chest and presses their eager lips and tongues together. They do this until the need gets too strong and they need to retreat to the bathroom again and repeat the cycle.

**…**

One night, passion finally sated, they sit and stare at the moon, which is again almost-full. From where they sit, the moonlight throws shadows over Takahiro-san’s face, making it look strangely hollow and death-like. Soon, a thick cloud blankets the moon and they can barely see each other through the darkness. It sends a shiver through his body, an irrational panic causing his heart to race and his breaths to come faster. He hugs the man in his arms tighter, afraid he’ll disappear.

In this strange atmosphere, their minds wander into places they’ve never ventured before.

“Ne,” he whispers into the ear of his beloved, “what do you think happens to us when we die?”

Takahiro-san rubs a fingertip over the mole on his cheek and then the one on his neck as he thinks on the question. The circular motions of lover’s touch bring some measure of peace.

“I’m not sure I believe in reincarnation, but I don’t like to think that death is the end,” the smaller man murmurs back, “I think echoes of us live on in our children, who we pass on to our looks, and so why not the way we think too?”

He feels sorry for the children he’ll pass his sleepy eyes on to. He presses his lips to the cluster of moles like stars on the smaller man’s face, trying to imagine a child-sized, carbon-copy of him. The latter continues voicing his meandering thoughts.

“I wasn’t a great student, but I did listen when they said we’re all made of tiny particles called atoms, which are actually energy in physical form. When we die, I think the atoms that we’re made of turn back into pure energy to make new atoms.”

He’s learnt this in his biology and chemistry classes too. There’s a lot he’s learning from lessons on modern science and technology imported from the West. But it strikes him now that they don’t have anything to say on what really matters. Like how to keep the man he holds in his arms with him, forever. He thinks of Naomi-san, the end of summer, and their inevitable separation.

“When we die, then,” he says, feeling suddenly overcome with a sadness that brings him near to tears, “I hope the atoms and energy in me, find the atoms and energy in you, and together they’ll make beautiful new things, like rivers, flowers, clouds, mayflies…”

Let there be a way for us, he silently beseeches the god of the moon, of the trees, of stone, of music and musical instruments, of electricity - of even electric instruments, if there was such a thing.

Takahiro-san turns in his arms and buries his face in his neck. He holds him for a very long time, until the shaking of their bodies stops and the sky begins to lighten with the dawn.

**…**

It happens in the middle of a heated discussion at the dinner table, over the expansion of local railway lines that require the destruction of centuries-old houses.

One second Naomi-san is arguing for the convenience the development will bring, and in the next second her impassioned rhetoric is cut off with an “oh!”

She brings her hands to her middle and gasps out in pain. She cries out once, twice. Takahiro-san is frozen where he sits, unsure of what’s going on.

“What is it, dear?” his mother gets up and hurries to Naomi-san’s side. 

“I… my…” she starts. A grey pallor spreads over her face and she looks close to fainting.

“Quick, call for the doctor!” her mother yells.

The next events happen in a blur. He recollects only loud voices, panicked faces, blood and wet towels, the fear in Takahiro-san’s eyes, and a whirl of movement. At some point he’s yelled at to go to his room.

There he tries to concentrate on his homework but the adrenaline in his system makes it difficult for his eyes to focus and the pencil to stop quivering. His eyes skim the passages repeatedly but their meaning is lost to him. He gives up and gets ready for bed but knows sleep is only a vague possibility.

Hours later, his elder brother returns to the room. When he turns on the light, the ruffled appearance of his hair suggests that he’s run his hands through it many times. He watches him open the cupboard, take out his futon and unfold it on the _tatami_. He sits on it and wearily removes his glasses.

“She almost had a miscarriage,” his brother says quietly, massaging his eyes, “I didn’t even know she’s pregnant. If I did, I wouldn’t have…”

His brother sighs.

“I don’t think _they_ even knew she was pregnant.” 

The blood in his veins turn into ice. He thinks of that night and the irrational fear that had struck him then; he knows how this ends, without having to be told.

“They’ll be returning to Tokyo in the morning so she can be with her family,” his brother informs him, sounding very far away although he’s less than a two metres away.

He says nothing, his mind caught in an echo chamber where he only hears ‘pregnant’, ‘returning’ and ‘Tokyo’ in a dissonant cacophony. It wasn’t meant to be this way. He thought he’d still have a month, or time enough to have a proper goodbye at least. He feels nauseated and closes his eyes to lessen the vertigo.

In his mind’s eye, he forces himself to envision working through the motions of drawing his _yumi_. He readies his stance, grips the bow and its string, lifts it to just above his head, pushes out his left arm and pulls with is right, then imagines an arrow being loosed. He cycles through these again and again, sometimes with the memory of Takahiro-san next to him or in front of him, until his breath evens out and sleep claims him.

**…**

When his eyes open, he knows instinctively from the sunlight that falls on his face that it is close to midday. He luxuriates briefly in the warmth before the events of last night trickle back into his consciousness.

Then a deluge of panic raises his body from the futon, and he’s on his feet, striding out of the room, down the hallway and climbing the stairs.

When he gets there, he sees the suit Takahiro-san wears on alternate days on a hanger near the window. Naomi-san’s _négligée_ is draped over the chair facing a dresser. In the corner, a table sits strewn all over with pens, pencils, paints and paper. No where is luggage in sight.

He breathes a sigh of relief and collapses on to the chair.

“Son?” his mother says, startling him. She is standing on the penultimate step of the staircase. She takes in the sight of her youngest and is sorry for the words about to leave her.

“Just so you know,” she says in a gentle tone, which reminds him of the way she once spoke to the deer they saw in Nara, “they’ll be sending for their things and won’t be coming back.”

He nods, and she retreats down the stairs, giving him privacy.

It is long past sundown when she finds him there again, on the floor with a piece of paper balled in his hand. She gathers him into an embrace and rocks him when a fresh torrent of soundless tears cascade down his face.

When she persuades him to let go of the paper, she unfolds it and her heart aches anew for her distraught son. On it, she sees a cartoon of a bucktoothed dinosaur frolicking with a silly, sunburnt-looking yeti in a river, the dinosaur’s sleepy but happy eyes instantly recognisable.

**…**

Years pass, and he locks away the memory of that summer in a box in his heart, whose existence he tells of to no one. It unlocks itself, however, on nights he dares to look up and sees an almost-full moon.

He works longs days with his father and brother at their dry goods store, doing the accounts late into the night so that his mind has less chance to indulge in reminiscences that will only give him pain. Burning the candle at both ends only serves to accentuate the lethargic look of his eyes. He takes to smoking clove cigarettes, the nicotine and scent giving him the will to carry on.

His father and mother are getting on in years now, and he can only fend off questions about finding a wife that can devote herself to their care for so long. Eventually he is introduced to a suitable one through an _omiai_.

She is much younger than himself. She is of modest beauty but, more importantly, is discreet enough to turn a blind eye when she awakens in the dead of night to discover her husband howling in grief at the moon. She says nothing when, some mornings, she finds that her husband asleep is again on the bench in the back garden, with a faded piece of paper clutched to his chest.

They try for a child but a second, global war tears their country and the world asunder. He enlists and tries to lose himself in battles on foreign shores.

She sends him news of their home, including that of a man found drowned in the river where he and his best friend used to spend their summers. There was no note left, she writes, on the shore they found only a neatly folded three-piece suit, with a golden cigarette case and lighter on top.

He throws himself into the fray, willing the god of death to take him; it doesn’t.

**…**

At the end of the war, Japan is defeated and while it is allowed to maintain its sovereignty, is made to open itself fully for trade with the West. His father and brother, finally steamrolled by modernity, agree to pack up their shop and join the manual labour force tasked to rebuild their country.

She’s still there when he returns.

Finally, she bears a child, then another and another, their tiny purplish-pink bodies sparking a secret hope in her husband’s eyes that are otherwise deadened. 

“You are magic,” she hears him whisper into the wisps of their hair, “like rivers, flowers, clouds, mayflies.”

They grow up, and he teaches them the _shaho-hassetsu_. His body weakens but everyday he still practices _kyudo_ in their garden with them alongside him. Nothing gives him as much joy as when he watches them pass their _shinsa_ , except for when they show any inclination towards arts or music.

**…**

It is still she, who, decades later, carefully hands over the precious bundle of his youngest grandchild when he lays on his deathbed. Through the window, the light of the moon falls on the crags of his face and calls out to his wearied atoms.

“Rivers, flowers, clouds, mayflies,” he rasps, breathing in the child’s sweet fragrance.

With his last breath, he feels the energy seep out of him through his fingers and into the little one, who opens his eyes for the first time. The eyes are round and have a distinctly sleepy look to it.

She closes her husband’s eyes and knows he is finally gone to where it is always night, where he has always longed to be.

Delicately, she pries the child from his arms.

She gives the child his namesake: Toru.


	2. Epilogue

In the front seat of a Toyota Camry Altise, a boy burgeoning on manhood peers up and watches the outline of an almost-full moon while his brother navigates the busy streets of Tokyo. 

“Which band are you seeing tonight?” his brother makes idle chit chat over the soft _enka_ music he insists on playing.

His brother can be really conservative and square, he thinks, but at least he doesn’t make fun of him and his friends’ attempts to form a rock band.

“No one noteworthy,” he replies, but instantly feels a strange prickling in his chest when he utters the words.

Perhaps it’s a bout of gastric reflux from putting too much _shichimi togarashi_ on the _yakizana_ he ate earlier. Or maybe it’s something else. He vaguely recalls feeling similar the first time he picked up his guitar. It’s perplexing; it feels like pain but it’s also kind of exhilarating. It reminds him that he’s young and so alive. 

The feeling still sits with him when he finds his friend and they are seated in the audience as they wait for the band to come on. His sleepy eyes roam around the room. He grows restless.

But soon his eyes lock on to a petite boy who walks to the centre of the stage, where he sits on a stool placed in a soft spotlight that resembles the light of the moon. Another boy takes a seat behind the drumkit and a guitarist makes his way on stage too, but they barely register in the young boy’s eyes.

The next events happen in a blur. Besides the discordant twangings of the unpracticed guitarist, he only registers the high clear sound of the petite boy’s voice and the lively but melancholic look in his eyes.

He almost sounds like a girl, he thinks, and distant echo of a moan and boisterous laughter rings in his head.

While he is lost in his thoughts, the band ambles off stage and into the crowd. The sound of a bottle breaking in the distance breaks him out of his trance. With a rising panic, he finds himself on his feet and following an inexplicable instinct to find the boy with the beautiful voice and contradictory eyes. It doesn’t take him long.

“Hey!” he calls out.

The boy stops and turns around. The movements are sluggish, as if he bears the weight of the world on his shoulders. Up close, he sees that the boy’s cheek is littered with a small constellation of moles.

When their eyes meet, he blurts out the first thing that comes into his head.

“What’s your name?”

“What’s yours first?” the boy answers back, surprisingly with sass.

“Yamashita Toru,” he murmurs, holding out his hand.

The petite boy eyes it warily but doesn’t take it immediately. He purses his fleshy lips in deliberation.

“Morita Taka,” the boy concedes, looking up into his eyes.

The ghost of a feeling: harsh sun on his skin and cool water lapping at his legs.

Slowly, the boy called Taka reaches out a slender-fingered hand to his. They’re not even touching yet, but Toru feels his hand tingle, as if their hands are strong magnets being drawn together and a great force is required to keep them apart.

What matters next doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, he realises. Because something embedded deep into the very atoms of Toru’s being _knows_ that, once their hands touch, he will never let go.

**_Owari._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations -  
> Enka – a popular style of Japanese music originating in the 1950s.  
> Shichimi togarashi – Japanese seven spice.  
> Yakizakana – fried fish.
> 
> Liked it? Loved it? Hated it? Let me know down below :)

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Yukata – a thin, unlined kimono usually worn during summer.  
> Zaibatsu – a large Japanese business conglomerate, usually headed by a single family.  
> Miso-shiru – a soup made of fermented soy paste  
> Hai – yes  
> Tatemae – “outer face”, referring to the polite face shown by Japanese people to others.  
> Kodomo no Kuni – a Japanese children’s illustrated magazine started in 1922, meaning children’s land.  
> Joie de vivre – French term meaning joy of life.  
> Shichimi togarashi – Japanese seven spice.  
> Yakizakana – fried fish.  
> Daikon – turnip.  
> Hashi – chopsticks.  
> Zori – a type of Japanese slipper, with a straw sole.  
> Ohayou/Ohayou gozaimasu – Morning/Good morning, a greeting.  
> Négligée – see through dress worn as underwear/bedwear.  
> Machiya – traditional Japanese townhouse.  
> Yumi – traditional Japanese long bow.  
> Kake – archery glove.  
> Tatami – rush-covered straw mat used for traditional Japanese floors.  
> Seiza – traditional Japanese sitting position done on the ground, with lower legs tucked underneath the bottom.  
> Kyudo – traditional Japanese archery.  
> Keikogi – uniform for training during traditional Japanese martial arts.  
> Arubaito – a part time job.  
> Futon – traditional Japanese bedding, spread directly on tatami.  
> Konnichi wa – polite greeting used during the day.  
> Hiyashi chuka – chilled Chinese-style noodles served with toppings in the summer.  
> Shitsureishimasu – literal translation is “to give offence”, but used in the context of entering or leaving a room politely.  
> Hashioki - chopsticks rest, a little stand where you put chopsticks down on the table.  
> Noren – traditional Japanese fabric dividers that hang in doorways or in windows.  
> Chichi-ue - a very formal way of referring to your father.  
> Shaho-hassetsu - the traditional 8 steps when drawing a bow in Japanese archery.  
> Uruse – literal translation is a crude way of saying “loud”, but used in the context to say “be quiet”  
> Sou ka – Is that so?  
> Omiai – traditional Japanese matchmaking.  
> Shinsa - the exam ceremony, used to grade archers that wish to obtain a higher level in kyudo.  
> Enka – a popular style of Japanese music originating in the 1950s.
> 
> If you made until here, thanks so much for reading! I really hope it was worth it :) 
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments, lovely readers. Take care, always.


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